Minnetonka man charged

BE homeowner charged in manslaughter case

December 8, 2013

A Minnetonka man appeared in Faribault County District Court on Dec. 3 in regards to a person being found dead in a Blue Earth residence he owns.

Hayden Spencer, 34, was charged with manslaughter in the first degree.

On Jan. 22 a Faribault County deputy was dispatched to a residence on 110th Street in Blue Earth.

According to court records, the officer was met at the door by Spencer, who was the owner of the residence.

Spencer led the officer upstairs where they found Juan Vasquez on a bed.

According to the officer, Vasquez was determined to be deceased and that his body was not in a normal sleeping position.

As part of the investigation, the deputy contacted the medical examiner and asked him to come out to the scene.

The deputy had to tell Spencer to wait downstairs several times during the investigation because Spencer kept on trying to come upstairs. The chief of police and the deputy found this behavior odd as the other male party in the house, Kyle Osmundson, was not making any effort to come up the stairs, according to the court document.

Spencer and Osmundson said that the three of them had gone to Mankato the previous night. In Mankato, they ate at a restaurant and had some alcohol to drink at a bowling alley.

The officer noticed that every time Osmundson would start to answer a question, he would be cut off by Spencer.

After their conversation, the deputy left the residence to notify Vasquez's family.

Vasquez's brother told the officer that he had a conversation with Vasquez the previous day, according to court records. He told the deputy that Vasquez said he was excited because his friend was bringing him Xanax.

The next day the officer interviewed Osmundson again. He told the officer that all three of them (Osmundson, Spencer and Vasquez) had used Xanax that evening and drank alcohol as well. Osmundson said the Xanax was provided by Spencer.

Next, the officer spoke with Spencer again. He admitted that Vasquez had taken Xanax. Spencer claimed that he let Vasquez look at the bottle of Xanax on their way to Mankato and that Vasquez took the pills on his own without Spencer's permission.

However, after noticing some contradiction in the two stories the officer got Spencer to admit that he gave Xanax to both Osmundson and Vasquez.

He told the officer that he burned the Xanax bottle in the wood stove in his shed to avoid getting into trouble, according to the court records.

Spencer claimed he had never provided pills to anyone else.

However, the deputy found out that Spencer has a long history of providing prescription medications to other individuals.

An autopsy was performed by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner's office and it revealed that the cause of death was probable mixed drug toxicity.